


Bribing Dame Fate

by Celandine



Category: Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-18
Updated: 2011-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-27 12:37:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celandine/pseuds/Celandine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry has a plan to recover his own and his sister's good humour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bribing Dame Fate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [espresso_addict](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=espresso_addict).



> For espresso_addict, who asked for Henry Crawford, "fate".

Dame Fate had been toying with him, Henry concluded, thinking over the whole affair afterward. To have placed within his reach one such as Fanny Price, only to snatch her away again! Surely that proved how fickle a mistress Fate could be.

He said as much to Mary, who smiled at the image but shook her head at him.

"It was your own fault, Henry, for wanting more than you had any right to claim. You were not content to wait for poor Fanny's heart to incline toward you; you had to be sure of Mrs Rushworth's as well. And you had it, and more of her still, but rightly lost Fanny thereby."

Mary did not say, that she had likewise lost Edmund Bertram through Henry's caprice, but Henry knew it to be so, and was ashamed. Not that Edmund had been such a good match for Mary, being but a second son and a clergyman, yet she had undoubtedly had a sincere attachment to him.

"I will tell you what I shall do, Mary," he said. "We both deserve some change of scene, some indulgence to raise our spirits. I shall take a house in London for us. You need not return to my uncle's this season, nor wait for an invitation from your friends. You shall preside at my table and give all the dinners and card-parties you choose. And perhaps then Dame Fate will smile kindly on both of us, for bearing up under disappointment and bringing amusement to others."

"I should enjoy that very much," said Mary, her eyes sparkling. "After the retirement of Mansfield and my sister's house, to have an establishment of my own in London -- that will be to drink the gods' ambrosia, indeed."


End file.
